For many years, there has been considerable amount of prior art for fore grips and bipod devices, that date back to pre-20th century times, with bipods having a familiar appearance, structure and configuration, where the fore grips and bipods are generally kept in a vertical orientation beneath the firearm.
For example, some known prior art includes but is not limited to U.S. Pat. Nos. 271,251; 1,295,688; 1,355,660; 1,382,409; 1,580,406; 2,386,802; 2,420,267; 2,436,349, and 3,235,997. These patents disclose the respective art in relation to bipods, but do not disclose a fore grip or gun handle with a concealable and collapsible bipod.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,487,807 describes a tripod gun handle that provides a combination pistol grip and pivotal tripod. An examination of this patent reveals a number of problems with this device, and the most obvious problem is that the tripod legs are positioned on the exterior of the handle when not deployed. If the gun with this device attached was being used in wet or muddy environments, either in a deployed or storage position, the ingress of mud and dirt into and around the handle could result in the deployment and storage of the tripod legs being severely restricted due to the mud or foreign matter. Another problem is that deployment requires the rotation of a disengagement cam to force the legs into their deployed position and then a leg locking assembly is rotated to lock the legs into a locked position. Two separate actions are required to deploy and lock the tripod legs into a locked position.
Another problem with these bipods and leg stands is that the fore grip type stands are generally locked in a fixed position, which means an operator would have to physically move and/or physically raise the stand to adjust the firearm to fire a shot. Such physical movements of having to physically cant, tilt and/or lift the stand would be naturally uncomfortable to the operator. In addition such physical movements can cause the firearm to be held in an unsteady position that makes both a steady and reliable shot at an intended target both difficult and potentially impossible.
Another problem with many firearms having fore grips and bipods is that the fore grips remain in fixed vertical type orientations beneath the firearm at all times. Thus, these firearms can be cumbersome to carry since the fore grip is sticking down which can hit or rub against the sides of the human carrier. Also the fixed vertically oriented fore grips make the firearms difficult to store and transport since the lower extending vertical fore grip takes up valuable space and room during transport.
Attempts over the years have been made to allow for allowing for some folding of portions of firearms. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,224 to Curtis; U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,620 to Harris; U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,188 to Harris; U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,433 to Parsons; U.S. Pat. No. 5,711,103 to Keng; U.S. Pat. No. 6,470,617 to Gregory; U.S. Pat. No. 6,517,133 to Seegmiller et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,627 to Kaempe. However, none of these references overcomes all of the problems with the prior art described above.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the problems addressed above.
The novel invention allows stands such as bipods to be able to fold as desired by the firearm operator.